Five Lorain children found living in squalor, mom arrested

LORAIN -- A 22-year-old mom was arrested for leaving her five children unattended in her filthy home on Sunday, according to a Lorain police report.

Osiris Boyer, of Lorain, was charged with five counts of child endangering. She was taken to Lorain city jail. A concerned neighbor called police around 2:50 p.m. on Sunday to report that the front door of a home on the 3100 block of Colorado Avenue was left wide open and the screen door was unlocked. Officer Brent Payne approached the home and heard multiple crying infants inside. A 4-year-old girl wearing an extremely dirty T-shirt answered the door for police and two other children followed, police said. The 2-year-old girl was completely naked and soaking wet and the 3-year-old boy was only wearing a T-shirt and was soaking wet. Payne asked the child where her parents were and she said "mommy is not home."

Payne asked a 17-year-old man in the other side of the duplex where the children's parents were. He said the mother went to the store for "five minutes" and asked him to watch the children while she was gone. He said he quickly went inside but did not know how to take care of young children or change a diaper.

Payne went back into the other side of the duplex with the children and saw two twin 1-year-old boys in a play pen crying. While standing in the living room Payne wrote "I was overcome by the overwhelming foul odor of garbage and stench of children's diaper that had not been changed in hours." Police checked the upstairs to find piles of clothes and an open soup can with sharp edges out in the open. There was also three vacuum cleaners sitting at the top of the stairs with cords out partially blocking the stairway and making it difficult for children to pass through. Payne noted the floor was covered with dirty water from the bathtub with several food particles floating around. The officer believed the wet children were playing in this dirty water with food in it. Payne noted " any one of these small infants could have easily drowned in this bathtub due to no adult supervision."

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Payne checked the upstairs bedrooms and described them as a "total mess." Neither room had an actual bed but had a mattress thrown on the floor. One of the rooms was cluttered with garbage. There were several toys in that room leading Payne to believe it may be a play area for children. Payne noted there was a chair propped against the refrigerator in the kitchen giving the children the ability to access the refrigerator which held a pan of moldy lasagna and unopened cans of Bud Light. The kitchen was filthy cluttered with several dirty dishes including knives within the reach of children. The children complained they had not eaten all day.

Boyer came back to the residence at 3:03 p.m. and asked the officer why he was there. He told her he was checking on her children and she said "oh well, arrest me then." Several other people showed up and yelled at the neighbor for not watching the children. She said she didn't know her neighbor but felt comfortable enough to leave him in charge of her children while she went to the store.

Her roommate told police they left to get her boyfriend and did not go to a store.

The caller told police Boyer left at 2:40 p.m. meaning that she had left the children unattended for 23 minutes.

Police arrested Boyd for child endangering. Payne attempted to get the children's father, who lives in Cleveland, to take custody of them but he said he didn't have a ride. Payne contacted Lorain County Children Services who informed him that they had an open case with Boyer. He informed Children Services of the horrible living conditions and requested that they remove the children since a family member could not take custody of them. Children Services later contacted Payne to tell him the father was coming from Cleveland along with another female and they were going to take the children to stay at her home in Avon Lake. They contacted Avon Lake Police to do a welfare check of that residence. Lorain police took pictures of the home to keep on file.